We would like to introduce to you four new coolers from the mainstream price range. It turns out that efficient cooling doesn’t have to be expensive and gigantic in size. But, if you want to find out more you will have to check out the roundup!

Conclusion

I believe that it is impossible to single out a definite leader among the four new cooling solutions discussed in this review. All coolers differ just slightly in efficiency as well as in their acoustic parameters. From the pricing prospective, Scythe REEVEN seems to be the most attractive solution at a recommended retail price point of only $24, but unfortunately, it comes with no LGA1366 retention yet. The next best choice would be GELID Silent Spirit, being a quiet and efficient cooler in its class, although it costs more than REEVEN. The remaining two participants, Scythe Katana 3 and Cooler Master Hyper N520 are also pretty close in their cooling efficiency.

XIGMATEK Nepartak cooler looks very impressive against the background of our today’s contestants: it remains a definite efficiency leader in both groups. Considering that it has very low MSRP of only $25, we decided to use it as a reference point for mainstream coolers testing. As for the efficiency difference between the mainstream cooling solutions and the super-cooler team represented by Thermalright IFX-14, I doubt any commentary is necessary on my part. You can see clearly how many degrees you can buy for paying at least twice as much. And speaking in MHz, we can say that this extra cash will buy you 200MHz of CPU speed. Note that the dependence of overclocking potential on cooling efficiency may differ both ways on other platforms, CPUs and even processor steppings.